Behold! A Concrete Version of Nike's Air Max 1

Grey London ECD Dominic Goldman Solidifies His Love for His Favorite Sneaker

Published on Mar 26, 2015

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Dominic Goldman, who recently became an ECD at Grey London after seven years at BBH, is quite the sneakerhead. One of his pastimes is collecting and customizing shoes. Recently, he just took it up a notch and created a series of Nike Air Max 1 sculptures, crafted entirely out of concrete.

The Air Max 1 happens to be his favorite sneaker, so to celebrate Air Max 1 day today (who knew?), he made a limited series of the shoe in white, a range of grey shades and black. Each comes atop a wooden plinth resembling a shoe box. The shoes weigh 3.5kg (about 7.7 pounds) each and are signed "Tiny," Mr. Goldman's artist tag, chosen in honor of his grandfather, the famous U.K. boxer Tiny Bostock.

To craft the shoes, Mr. Goldman commisioned a 3D designer to fashion a 3D model, which was then professional printed. "This wasn't easy, as they kept breaking," Mr. Goldman said. "The 3D printing company said it was the hardest thing they'd try to print, so it took many goes to get the model necessary."

Once that was finalized, Mr. Goldman approached another company to create the mold, during which the 3D models broke again -- a few times. "Eventually it worked and a super fine aggregate concrete was used with the dye embedded in the mix to create the color," he said. " It was very difficult to extract all the air bubbles and preserve all the stitching and detail of the shoe, including the tread on the sole."

A lot of thought went into the choice of material. "Concrete is the opposite to air, and was partly ironic and partly immortalizing the sneaker I love, for my apartment," Mr. Goldman said.

Mr. Goldman does intend to sell the sculptures, but for how much, he's not sure. "I haven't figured out an exact cost yet as I've put a lot of money into getting this far," he said. "Probably in the region of 900 pounds a pair."